Irma Nydia Vázquez

Irma Nydia Vázquez (June 8, 1929 - May 2, 2019) was Puerto Rico's representative (as Miss Puerto Rico) to the 1948 Miss America pageant. Although Malen Pietrantoni[1] started Puerto Rico's annual participation in the event in 1937[2][3] as Miss Puerto Rico,[4][5] and Zulma Caballero Lopez participated in 1938,[6] Vázquez is nonetheless generally credited with being the first Puerto Rican contestant in the event,[7][8] which required all contestants[9] to sign a contract, which then required that "contestant must be in good health and of the white race."[10]

Life

The daughter of an industrialist and sister of a future Puerto Rico secretary of state, she was the second wife of Puerto Rican singer and composer Bobby Capó,[11] a marriage initially opposed by her family but which lasted 25 years, during which they had 5 children.[12] She was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico,[13] to Pedro Vázquez, the founder of professional baseball in Puerto Rico, and Genoveva Vázquez, a seamstress who designed former First Lady Ines Maria Mendoza's dress during the White House gala hosted by President John F. Kennedy at which cellist Pablo Casals performed.

She died on May 2, 2019, in Hackettstown, New Jersey, under the care of her daughters and granddaughters. She was buried at the Coamo Municipal Cemetery in Coamo, Puerto Rico next to Capó's grave.[13]

References
  1. "page_54". Archived from the original on 28 Feb 2023.
  2. "Miss America 1937 Candidates". Miss America. 2018-07-05. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  3. "Destiny Vélez is Miss Puerto Rico 2015". Pageants News. 2015. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved 2020-04-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. Montcourt, Nahira (2019-12-08). "Memoria Viva: La búsqueda incansable de la belleza puertorriqueña". Noticel. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  5. "Miss America Contestants". Getty Images. September 11, 1937. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  6. "Miss America 1938 Candidates". Miss America. 2018-07-05. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  7. "Irma Nydia Vázquez la primera boricua en Miss América". Primera Hora. April 22, 2009. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  8. Vargas Casiano, Patricia (2019-05-02). "Muere la abuela del cantante Pedro Capó". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  9. "Miss America 1948 Candidates". Miss America. 2018-06-28. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  10. "1948 Pageant Contract | American Experience". PBS. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  11. Báez, Nancy Abreu (2019-06-28). "He sido el incomprendido: la historia de Bobby Capó by Víctor Federico Torres (review)". Caribbean Studies. 47 (1): 158–161. doi:10.1353/crb.2019.0012. ISSN 1940-9095. S2CID 198666172.
  13. "Irma Nydia Vazquez". ObitTree.com. Retrieved 17 January 2020.


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